A poster took to Reddit to tout a unique approach to their holiday season and keeping their house clean and organized.
According to their post on the r/minimalism subreddit, the person has started a reverse advent calendar for the holiday season, in which they donate or sell at least one item from their home each day.
"No, that's not revolutionary or new," they said, "it's just fun and for some reason it reminds me of the advent calendars I used to have been as a child because I'm just as excited to declutter something everyday."
Typically, on an advent calendar, you open small doors each day and receive a piece of candy or a small treat, meant to help keep you in the spirit for the Christmas season. In this case, the poster is trying to improve their mental health and reduce the amount of clutter in their home to keep in the spirit of the season.
Minimalism can have a profound positive impact on your mental health. According to the National Institute of Health, it can help foster happiness by focusing on "close relationships and spirituality," while studies have reported increased awareness, mindfulness, and savoring of things as a result of engaging in the practice.
Reducing the number of things in your life can also have a profound impact on the environment. Donating or selling items you no longer want rather than throwing them away keeps them out of landfills, which reduces your carbon footprint, while buying fewer things can also reduce your lifestyle's impact on the environment.
This Redditor's approach can be especially easy for homeowners to apply — particularly when you consider that the average American home contains 300,000 items. With that perspective, removing one item per day for a month doesn't seem so bad, whether you're donating or trying to get some value in return via companies like Trashie or ThredUp.
Commenters on this post were excited to give the poster's idea a try.
"Ooh I love this!" one said, "I'm going to try it too!"
"I love this idea," said another, "It's almost December 1st. I can already think of a few items."
"Thank you for posting this today!" said a third, "I am going to copy this idea tomorrow onward!"
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